Twelve Tips For Twelve Months

Thanks for visiting! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed using the feedburner link to the right.

Here are twelve tips from me. One for each month I’ve been a blogger. I’m sure that they are nothing new, but maybe a beginner blogger will find them helpful.

1. Decide what you want from your blog before starting. If you just want to blog for yourself and your family then it doesn’t hurt to jump right in without planning. I knew that I wanted to eventually make some money from my blog so I needed to build a reader base. In order to build a good reader base you have to post consistently whether it be weekly or daily.
2. Research and decide which blog platform you want to use before starting your blog. I used to read a blog that switched from Blogger to Wordpress then back again. I don’t read her anymore because I lost her in the shuffle and didn’t love the blog enough to spend time searching.
3. Knowing about computers and knowing how to blog are two separate things. Forget the attitude “I don’t know about computers so I can’t do it.”
4. Read and Learn. There is tons of info/tips/advice/books out there to help you start a blog, design a blog, profit from a blog, etc. If you really want to figure it out then search for it, read about it, and do it. Bloggers are generally happy to help others. Find a blog that is about blogging, subscribe to it, and read it - at least scan it occasionally.
5. Keep a written journal with ideas, quotes, facts, stories that can be used as or turn in to posts. Often great ideas come when my husband is at the computer, or when I’m in bed or the shower. I can just jot down some notes for later.
6. Everyone says that content is the key. And it is. I’m not saying that my content is always good, but I’ve only been doing this for a year. Your blog can look beautiful but nobody will keep reading if you don’t have good posts.
7. Instead of spending a lot of time beautifying your blog, work on your content. I determined that I would add one new design item a week to my blog when I first started. The design side can just eat up the hours and then, “Oh, no! It’s time for supper and I didn’t write a post!.” One a week gave me time to research and tweak plus made me work on my posts if that design item was finished.
8. Find a popular blog you like and imitate it. Now I pull ideas from a lot of places, but when I started I pretty much did it if such-and-such a blog did it or didn’t if they didn’t. Any guesses who I used as my pattern?
9. If you see something you like on another blog you can probably have it on yours. Most things have a “get this for your blog” if you click on it. Once I left a comment and asked the lady where she got a particular widget; she replied promptly with the info I needed.
10. Check how your comments are moderated. If you are with Blogger please, please, please allow commentors to put their own name and site address in. You can still have it set that you have to approve comments before they’re published. I don’t have a Blogger sign in and I don’t want one. So, if I can’t leave my name and site then you don’t get a comment. If you want to get comments you have to leave comments for others. It’s a social thing.
11. Pick a day to have off and post stamp your posts for that day. My day off is Sunday. I stay totally away from the computer on Sundays. My Sunday Poems are ready in advance.
12. Keep at it unless you really hate it. Know that you will have ups and downs like a roller coaster, but aren’t they one of the most popular rides at the park?

Possibly Related posts:

1. It’s My First Blogaversary!
2. Moderate - don’t block - Comments
3. Question about Blogger
4. Hope I Win!
5. I’m a Reader of the Week

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.